Part 13 – The Good and the Better News

Once we had the good news, we had to decide how long to wait before we started telling people. I’ve heard/read you should wait until the first trimester is over before telling friends and family. We waited approximately five minutes. We immediately began our “pregnancy road-show” by visiting family and calling friends. All phone batteries were dead before the clock hit 10pm.

My best week ever breaks down like this:

• Christi’s preggo – check
• Thanksgiving dinner – check
• Cowboys win – check
• My nephew’s wedding – check
• Aggies beat t.u. – WHOOP!

I also learned another thing that weekend; Christi’s hormones were kicking in. Christi had to opt out of the 5th annual Massey family Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot… for obvious reasons. We waited with the kids at the finish line. Not long after the first man finished the race, the first woman came cruising towards the finish line. She was only 10 feet from the finish line when another woman in a full sprint passed her to be the first woman across the line. Christi was so sad for the 2nd place finisher, she cried. I’m not kidding. She cried for a woman she never met, or even saw before. I don’t deal well with a crying woman. It confuses me… I usually end up just buying them shiny things to make them stop. I am in for a long, long nine months.

The next major milestone was a visit to Dr. Vaughn’s office for a sonogram. The goal was to make sure the baby was doing well. Christi and I met in the parking lot of the office. I was on time and in the right place… I’m getting good at this stuff. After a short wait, we were called back to the room. Dr. Vaughn met us with good news. Christi’s hormone levels looked good and things were progressing nicely. Next was the sonogram.

A fuzzy image on the monitor showed a nickel size baby inside Christi. Dr. Vaughn held for a moment to show a tiny blinking dot… the baby’s heart! He even let us listen. A twist of the wrist, a new image on the screen, and these words in super slow motion from the good doctor:

“Theeerrrreeee’s baaaabbbby nuummmbbbber twoooooo.”

What?!?! Are you kidding? Twins.

Wow! They aren’t identical twins since they came from two different embryos, but there were definitely two of them. We saw two little heads, heard two heartbeats. We always wanted at least two kids. Now we would knock them both out with one shot. Nice.

On to 14

Part 12 – Try… Try… Again

It’s Friday morning – 8am. I barely slept in anticipation of our embryo transfer. Christi and I were anxious and ready to have a shot at parenthood. The process was pretty much the same as the last time. Christi was wheeled into the freezing room, strapped in, and the embryos were turkey-basted into oven.

The following week was hectic to say the least. I was a groomsman in Daryl’s wedding in San Antonio on Saturday. Christi, on embryo house-arrest, could not attend. Tracey, a life saver, volunteered to come over and occupy Christi with movies and girl stuff.

That night, at the wedding, I learned what it means to have true friends. I can’t count the number of friends that prayed for us, sent us their good thoughts and truly wanted us to have a baby. These are the same people that, five years ago, were more concerned with killing gallons of booze before dawn and tagging the passed out with permanent marker… times have changed. Ironically, I had one drink at the wedding and drove home to Austin that night to be with Christi.

The next ten days were stressful. Christi made a huge mistake three days before we were to get the official results… she took a home pregnancy test. The pee-test came back negative which seemed to put us both into a tailspin for the long weekend. Christi’s work had a happy hour for a co-worker on Friday. With the negative home pregnancy test, she seriously considered drinking that night. There was no way she was pregnant so she might as well enjoy the evening. She only drank water that night.

That Sunday morning we drove to the lab for the official blood test. We would have to wait another five hours for the results. We spent most of the day with my sister and her family to keep our minds off the looming bad news. After the noon hour crept towards us, we decided to go home and wait for the results at 1:30pm.

The wait was agonizing. We decided to page the nurse early to “get it over with”. I was looking up the phone number when the phone rang. The caller ID showed Dr. Vaughn’s number. Dr. Vaughn wasn’t supposed to call us… this is bad… real bad. I’m sure he was saving the nurse from delivering more bad new. Christi ran to my side to allow me to listen to the result. I didn’t want to hear. I heard three words… I will never forget those three words…

“You’re Pregnant Girl!”

Imagine shaking a Champaign bottle for 2 years and then finally uncorking it. That’s what the moment felt like. All the sadness, anxiousness, anger, depression flowed out and was replaced by one feeling… YES!

Lucky Number 13